Epitome of Ptolemy's Almagest

...they might enjoy divine delights. For what is more pleasant, what more lovely, what, finally, can affect the eyes more sweetly than that series of so many and such great lights in its most beautiful and orderly arrangement? Indeed, if you are carried away in spirit by this sight, you will find that you have never felt anything more delightful in all your life.

From this, a greater difficulty of this discipline hangs over us—though that difficulty is by no means small which the translators of foreign manuscripts have produced for us. It is truly difficult and arduous for things that were well-said in a foreign tongue to preserve the same beauty and the same ease in translation, even if they have been translated by eloquent men with the greatest zeal and diligence. But if the translator is insufficiently eloquent or careful, the speech overflows as something entirely rough and turbulent.

This is clearly what I see happened to that most famous book of Ptolemy, which they call the Great Construction original: "magnam compositionem". This refers to the Almagest, the foundation of medieval astronomy.. Although among the Greeks it shines with marvelous ease and eloquence, among the Latins it is held to be so harsh and inept that not even Ptolemy himself, if he were to come back to life, would recognize it as his own.

When you had pondered this in your mind for some time, most excellent Prince Bessarion, you were affected by a distress beyond measure—not so much because that golden river of your countryman’s Ptolemy was Greek; Bessarion was a Byzantine Greek scholar who became a Cardinal in the West. genius had fallen into such barbarity through the fault of translators, but because our Latins (whom you pursue with singular love and benevolence) lacked such an excellent and famous work. For we seemed to lack it enough, having only a translation so barbaric and inept.

You then decided, as a man most skilled in both languages—being no less fluent in Latin than in your native tongue Greek—to look after both your homeland and ours: to the former by restoring its ancient splendor, and to us by gifting a true likeness of that work, of which we previously had only a deformed ghost. You therefore began to make that famous work Latin once again, so that you might deserve well of your Latins and this most studious homeland with greater daily benefits.

But the burden delegated to you then at the court of the most pious Emperor Referring to Bessarion's diplomatic duties as a Cardinal-Legate. recalled you from your purpose, nor did the public affairs of the Christian religion, which you had to attend to, allow you leisure for letters. Therefore, attempting through another what you could not provide yourself, you persuaded George, the Emperor’s astronomer George von Peuerbach (1423–1461), Regiomontanus's teacher., who was then in Vienna—my teacher, a man primary in every kind of study both for his character and integrity of life, and in mathematics learned above all men of our age—to attempt to make the book of Ptolemy of which we speak (which he held in memory almost word for word) both shorter and clearer.

It is incredible to say how that diligent man made the meanings clearer, dividing them in the manner of geometers Peuerbach structured the text with clear geometric proofs and propositions to make it more logical., so that they might be understood more openly, committed to memory more easily, and stick more tenaciously. But after finishing six books, as if in the middle of his course—alas, even the memory of this thing is mournful and bitter—he was most unworthily snatched from us by an untimely death.

Indeed, a little before he departed from life, while I held him dying in my hands and lap, he said: "Farewell, my Johannes, farewell! And if the memory of a pious teacher can have any weight with you, finish the work of Ptolemy which I leave incomplete. I bequeath this to you as my testament, so that even though I am dead, I may still satisfy the desire of our best and most worthy Prince Bessarion through the surviving better part of myself."

Truly a grand work, and one unequal to my strengths, did my dying teacher place upon my shoulders; and while to undertake it would be a matter of temerity, to refuse it would be the act of an ungrateful and almost sacrilegious man. But to me, as I wavered, you, most excellent Father Bessarion, strengthened my spirit so that I might pursue such a great work; you compelled me by your authority original: "numine", suggesting a divine-like will or command..

I have therefore finished the work begun by my teacher, and I have dedicated it to your most sacred name, so that you may place and guard it among the other books of your library. For to what more worthy prince or patron could the monuments of the good arts flee for refuge than to you, who are most outstanding in learning and every kind of virtue? Thus, all the best...

DSI Printer's signature or mark.